A Chinese court has sentenced a veteran dissident convicted of spying to three years in prison.

Huang Qi was convicted of illegally possessing state secrets by the Wuhou district court in the western city of Chengdu, his wife Zeng Li said by telephone.

Zeng said no details were given about the charge, an ill-defined accusation often used by Communist leaders to clamp down on dissent and imprison activists.

Huang was detained on 10 June 2008 after posting articles on his website criticising the government's response to the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province that killed about 90,000 people. Huang also spoke to foreign media about parents' criticism that their children had been crushed in badly built schools. The government has tried to suppress such complaints.

Zeng said Huang was taken directly from the court without being allowed to speak. She believed he would appeal the sentence.

Calls to the court and Huang's lawyer, Mo Shaoping, rang unanswered.

Huang previously served a five-year prison sentence on subversion charges linked to politically sensitive articles posted on his website.

Since his release in 2005 he had supported a wide range of causes, including families of those killed in the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing and farmers involved in land disputes with authorities.